Thursday, October 12, 2007: Apparently the food from the night before did not sit well in my belly. It had been a terribly hot night, I had stomach pains all night and a annoying cricket chirped all night long. I never heard the cricket but it annoyed Jesse all night long. I managed to curl up in a little ball pass out and not vomit....

Princesa woke us up at 5:30 a.m., she jumped onto our bed so I kicked her out of our room. Princesa was my cousin, Janette's, cute, annoying, toe-nipping puppy. Awfully cute but she loved to nip our toes. Jesse wanted to kill the cricket that was no where to be found but at least I had woken up with no migraine. We called Janette into our room to see if she could hear the cricket, but apparently she was immune to the LOUD chirping. It was rather hilarious.

It was the dry season, so it hadn't rained in a few days and the temperature started to soar. After breakfast, we took my grandparents and Hermana Manuela to Ari's Burger (A.K.A Gringolandia) at the Plaza de Armas. Gringolandia was a peculiar place to see because all the "Gringos" show up to dine there for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Gringos are Caucasian looking people whether they are America, English, Canadian, etc. Whats "different" about Gringolandia is this is where lots of young local women (single and married) are waiting for these "Gringos" to take care them by buying them clothes, food and sometimes homes for their families. Sadness.

Other than the peculiarity of Gringolandia, they had yummy ice cream and that is why we went. My grandparents really liked ice cream. Each of my grandparents ordered three ice cream scoops each. My grandfather hardly ate anything the whole time we were in Iquitos except for when we went to eat ice cream. He ate all his three ice cream scoops plus one scoop off of my grandmothers bowl. I think this is the only picture I have of my grandparents and I.....

Janette did not go with us to Gringolandia because she had to work that morning so I had to catch a motocarro all by myself. I faked a Iquitos accent and they didn't overcharge us. When the motocarros see us (meaning Jesse) they would always overcharge us because he's "big". Whatever.

After Janette got home we hitched a ride over to my Tia Teresa's house and has some delicious peanut soup, beets and masamorra, a traditional Peruvian juice. The soup was delicious but it was an awfully hot day so we sweat so much during lunch. I recognized my aunts home because this was the home my grandparents lived in when I first visited when I was younger, 19 years before this visit.

My aunt showed me my wedding favors my mother sent down to her and some childhood pictures that she saved in a little box. It made me feel very loved, both by my mother and my aunt...

Lunch was over and we said our goodbyes. From there we took a motocarro to the docks which was the launching point anywhere down the Amazon rivers. Jesse was a walking dollar sign because we got swarmed by boat drivers to take us to see the Indian Tribes. We finally found boat driver who was not annoying, Merlin. He still tried to take us to see some tribes but all we wanted was to go see the butterfly's.

Down the river we went to one of the coolest places I went to Iquitos, the Butterfly Farm.